Have you ever made a promise to someone? Most probably you have. Have you always kept your promises? I would guess that some didn't get followed up properly. And other people break their promises to us, of course. We're human, subject to circumstances over which we have no control and sometimes not too keen to control those which we could. We probably all break some of our promises - through inability, weakness, or our own deliberate fault. If God makes a promise, though, it is kept.
This week is the second week of Advent and we consider the prophets in the Bible. Not everything that they said or wrote was a promise, but much of Biblical prophecy is indeed God promising that something would definitely happen, or that it would occur if the people kept their side of a certain bargain. In fact, the Bible is littered with prophets and their sayings. We tend to think of the big names who wrote large books (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel) or had large parts of books devoted to them by the author (e.g. Elijah and Elisha in 1 Kings and 2 Kings, respectively). Then there are some cameo appearances by people who stick in our memory because they were particularly bold or outrageous, such as Nathan confronting King David about his adultery. If we are quite familiar with the Old Testament, then we might remember the other 12 smaller prophetic books from Hosea to Malachi (and even their order).
God speaks so clearly through the Bible partly because many of the authors directly quote his words.
But that's not really littering the pages with prophets, so who are the others? Well, some are known for other things and we might not think of them specifically as prophets. There's Moses the great leader and law writer, Samuel the king maker, David the King, John the disciple of Jesus, to name just a few. Then there are many more of those cameo appearances, for example: Iddo provided some of the source material for the first book of Chronicles regarding King Abijah of Judah; an unnamed man prophesied to the idolatrous altar on which Jeroboam I of Israel was about to offer a sacrifice, causing its dramatic destruction; Oded was sent by God to the army of Israel in the days of King Pekah to tell them to release the prisoners they had taken from Judah; Jehu prophesied against King Baasha of Israel; Agabus prophesied to Paul that he would be taken prisoner in Jerusalem.
Of course, I have mentioned only men so far, but women make several appearances on the prophetic scene as well. Miriam, the sister of Moses, is named as a prophet, as are Isaiah's wife and the national leader Deborah; Huldah was the go-to prophet in Jerusalem when Josiah was restoring the Temple; Anna was honoured with the task of announcing Jesus as the Messiah when he was taken to the Temple as a baby; the deacon-evangelist Philip had four daughters who prophesied. These nine women are specifically referred to as prophets, but others gave prophetic words on occasion: Jacob's wife Rachel, Hannah the mother of Samuel, Abigail who prophesied to King David and later became his wife, John the Baptist's mother Elizabeth, and Mary the mother of Jesus.
Advent is the lead up to Christmas, the first incarnation of Jesus, but also when we look towards his second coming. This week, I shall be posting about Isaiah, who wrote the longest prophetic book in the Old Testament, in which he foretold both the coming of Jesus as the Messiah and the end of the world. That will be followed by Jesus' disciple John, who wrote the longest book of prophecy in the New Testament, in that case just about end times. However, in this season, let's not forget the host of other people who help to bring the Bible to life by delivering the direct words of God within its pages. Also, let's not forget that Joel prophesied that all Christians will be given the Holy Spirit, which will cause both men and women to prophesy. Later Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthian church, encourages us all to eagerly desire to hear God prophetically. So now it's over to us to keep the spoken voice of God ringing in the ears of the world to complement his definitive written word in the Bible.
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